the view from my precarious perch

How I made friends with fear

The four of us dress in stiff coats
to visit our father at his office, travel
by train to Chicago, the seventeenth floor
of a skyscraper wedged between
reachless towers of darkened metal.

A hushed ride in a mirrored elevator,
plush carpet, we gather near his desk.
Before a glass wall
I stand apart from the other three,
eleven years old, the eldest
and by birthright the chieftain of our tribe.

My sisters watch for signs–how to act?
But my breath catches at the top
of my lungs as larger people
shuffle papers in the outer office–

I wish I were alone to practice
at being afraid, to carry out my solo
rituals in the basement of my house,
a place that draws me with an unseen cord

downwards. In the dark I walk
backwards in a circle, round and round
three times to conjure up the Devil,
who I hope will rise from the black
smudge on my soul to fill up the pitch air.

I know all about God the Father
and the Blessed Virgin from weekend
migrations to Our Lady of the Wayside.

I want to understand that thorn in God’s side,
not the thorns in his crown.
I seek the one who gave Jesus hell in the desert.
If I am to be an implacable
ice goddess in this City of Restraint,
I’ll need to test my courage
against a hailstorm of fear.

These thoughts hover on the edge
of my mind as I look out the thick glass
to the specks of people below,
watch toy cars inch along the asphalt,
wonder what it would feel like to jump, or fly.

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Published by Christine

Christine Swint’s poems have appeared in Calyx, Birmingham Poetry Review, Slant, a Journal of Poetry, Tampa Review, Heron Tree, Ekphrasis, and others. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets, and she has won first place prizes from the Georgia Poetry Society and Agnes Scott College. Her first collection, Swimming This, was published in 2015 by FutureCycle Press. She teaches first-year composition at a metro-Atlanta university and writes about poetry, art, hiking, and yoga at Balanced on the Edge, https://balancedonedge.blog
Twitter @christine_swint
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23 thoughts on “How I made friends with fear”

Wow…this is great, Christine. It also scared me a little bit, so big applause for moving the reader! I can see the eleven-year-old girl with all of those thoughts, and it really gripped me.

The last stanza is very strong, too. That’s the part where I felt the girl wasn’t “the bad seed,” but just a sad, scared little girl. I might be misinterpreting that, but it’s the impression I receive from either “jump or fly.” It is left open for interpretation, though, so I like that.

Another thing this poem makes me think of is that odd feeling I get when on an edge, a cliff, or looking through glass from high above a city. For just a second, I get that urge to jump. Do you know what I mean, or am I just crazy? Anyway, this poem also made me think of that feeling.

Oh, this is tremendous. It’s tight. Distilled, like the fear of heights, the wo/ander at F/fathers. The awareness of isolation in a family. Amazing, truly. (I felt no fear at reading of early rituals; I tried them, too, as a pre/early teen.)

Unsettling and edgy, Christine. Like Julie, I experienced vertigo – and feel exposed and uneasy.

These are my two favourite stanzas:

“I want to understand that thorn in God’s side,
not the thorns in his crown.
I seek the one who gave Jesus hell in the desert.
If I am to be an implacable
ice goddess in this City of Restraint,
I’ll need to test my courage
against a hailstorm of fear.

These thoughts hover on the edge
of my mind as I look out the thick glass
to the specks of people below,
watch toy cars inch along the asphalt,
wonder what it would feel like to jump, or fly.”

christine, this brings me back to all my childhood anxieties and the feeling that everything and everyone around you is a thousand times bigger than they really are. love, love, love, the last stanza! i can see the girl, i can see the glass, the specks of people and the toy cars. beautiful!

only the aftermath of fear can allow for such unbridled indestructibility,, and if i am correct,, that is what i hear ringing out in the final line……. excellent piece christine… i miss you speaking them to me tho’…..

It was completely inspired by yours. I love yours. I should have said that. “I wish I were alone to practice/ at being afraid” wow. powerful really. I was thinking maybe we could do some response poems like Dana and Nathan are doing. I like that idea. Do you care if we’re “copy cats”? It’d really be a good way to keep me writing through this last part of the semester when I will be so busy with school stuff. Not that I’m using you. I like your work. I thought maybe we could share and collaborate too, and get together to work since we live so close. We still gotta get together, seriously.